Further policy changes will affect the recruitment of highly-qualified workers from overseas, says STEVEN DUNN
Since Brexit, proposed changes to UK government immigration policy have not been in short supply, and if only the same could be said about the skilled and highly-qualified workers that businesses have been keen to attract and which governments support.
On 12 May, the Home Office published a white paper outlining yet further proposed changes, including a focus on widening accessibility to the High Potential Individual (HPI) route.
The HPI visa is one of a number of specialised visa categories that the UK government introduced post-Brexit to address skills shortages. It has been operational since May 2022 and as its name suggests it’s a key part of the strategy to attract the ‘brightest and best’ talents to the UK. One significant advantage of this visa is that individuals don’t require sponsorship by an employer to come to the UK under this route.
In some ways the HPI visa is a counterpoint to the Graduate visa which is intended for international students who have studied in the UK, while in contrast the HPI visa is for students who have received a qualification from an eligible overseas university within the five years preceding their application.
However, as usual with the Home Office things are not straightforward, and not all such students will be eligible for this visa.
Firstly, those who wish to take this visa route must have a qualification equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree, postgraduate degree or a PhD/Doctorate and individuals must apply to Ecctis (The Education Consulting and Credit Transfer Information Service), the designated body that compares international academic qualifications against UK education standards, to have their qualification assessed.
Secondly, their qualification must have been awarded by a university appearing on a list of the top global universities. That list is compiled by the Home Office using the average scores from a number of sources, such as Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and is updated annually.
There are currently 42 universities listed, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and MIT in the USA, Tsinghua University in China, and Heidelberg and Paris Sciences et Lettres in Europe. As universities can be promoted on to and relegated from this list, applicants must ensure that their university appeared on the list at the date they received their qualification.
Unlike some other visa categories, individuals who are granted an HPI visa may still be accompanied by their partner and/or dependent children when they come to the UK. They must ensure that they have sufficient personal savings to support themselves and their dependants while here and they will all be liable to pay the cost of the healthcare surcharge when they apply.
As mentioned earlier a key advantage of this visa is that employer sponsorship is not required, and an applicant can come to the UK for up to 2 years (3 years if they have a PhD or doctorate); they may look for work, be self-employed or do volunteering, and in terms of work they can undertake most jobs apart from that of a professional sportsperson.
But what the HPI visa doesn’t offer is any time period extension, and so individuals looking to remain for longer than the 2 or 3 years allowable by their level of qualification would have to switch into another visa category, for example, Skilled Worker, if they wished to remain in the UK. They would also be unable to count any time spent in the UK on this visa towards the residence period if they wished to apply for settlement (a.k.a. indefinite leave to remain).
May’s White Paper was published under the title “Restoring Control Over the Immigration System”. As with previous proposed reforms the overall aim is to reduce net migration into the UK, and so it may turn out to be the case that the HPI visa will face further restrictions. And there has already been mention of a cap on the number of visas issued, yet at the same time the government has also indicated it will be considering doubling the number of eligible universities on the Home Office list.
Given the broader strategy of encouraging the best and brightest talents to the UK, there may still be a future for the HPI visa, at least for now. But, combined with other proposed changes what remains to be seen is the overall impact on the UK’s competitiveness to attract the top level of global talent.
In this everchanging landscape it is a constant challenge to business owners, reliant on overseas workers, to plan for the support they require, and early advice is essential.
Steven Dunn is head of pensions and business immigration law at Vialex
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